10 Bullsh*t Arguments Against GMOs

According to the internet, GMOs are responsible for a lot of problems. You’ve heard that they cause almost everything, including weight gain, acne, allergies, eczema, asthma, and maybe even cancer. They’re killing the bees, the butterflies ... And I’m hearing they’re also responsible for dementors, wingardium leviosa, and Voldemort. They’re the reason that jerk from Tinder ghosted you. And of course, they’re at least partially responsible for the collapse of the banking system and the Illuminati is using them as a tool to oppress the masses.

Suffice to say, there are a lot of rumors about GMOs, and there’s a good chance that you’ve bought into at least one of them. But what’s the truth? Let’s look at 10 common beliefs about GMOs — and why they’re wrong.

1. There is a big difference between laboratory genetic modification and natural modification. I’ve had the same debate about GMOs countless times. Our lines are improvised a little, but the script is written as follows:

“GMOs are bad.”

“Why?”

“Because it changes the DNA of the food.”

“But we were already doing that with other techniques.”

“BUT THOSE WERE NATURAL.”

{Fin}

Ah, yes, the natural argument. You’ve heard some of the rumors that, with genetic modification, we’ve unnaturally reinvented the Pop-Tart to sling webs and regrow limbs, right? This is a lot like saying the nice folks from Amazon use the Kindle as a radical new way to sell a book not so that it’s more compact, but so that it drunk-dials your ex. This is fearmongering about a new technology and it’s preying on your lack of knowledge.

So what do the breeding techniques have in common, what are the differences between them, and why do we use each of them? Well, the main thing all breeding techniques have in common is they all produce new genetic strains of crops. After that, it gets complicated.

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Traditional breeding methods, including hybridization or selective breeding, are what we think of as “natural” breeding. These are done for a variety of reasons, from making new varietals of the crop to making it more resistant to the elements. But make no mistake, this drastically alters the DNA of the seeds. For comparison, President Barack Obama’s hypoallergenic Portuguese water dog, Bo, is somewhat of a hybrid. A chihuahua is a selectively bred gray wolf. In fact, all dogs are descendants from the same genetic ancestor, the gray wolf (my 11-pound chihuahua-terrier mix could breed with a gray wolf … carefully), but don’t fall into the trap of thinking that “natural” modification is always better or healthier. Bulldogs were selectively bred, and they generally give birth via C-section, have breathing problems, and only live for about six years.

I’m not saying that to scare you off natural breeding in plants, but to remind you that “natural” doesn’t equal “superior.” When you change the DNA naturally to achieve a desired trait, you’ll also change a group of traits you weren’t planning to change.

So what’s so scary about GMOs? Is it the picture that you’ve seen with the apple with a bunch of syringes with multicolored fluids sticking out of it?

In reality, the processes that can create a GMO including t-dna insertion, gene silencing, and gene activation involve changing very few genes to give the plant a desired trait. Unlike traditional breeding, though, scientists can target a selected trait without risking the rest of the other traits in the genetic profile of the plant. Extending the dog metaphor, it would be like if we could get those cute wrinkles on the face of a bulldog without all the other genetic mischief.

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Is there a reason we use one technique over another? Yes, we use them because they’re appropriate for a desired result. As Dr. Pamela Ronald, geneticist from UC Davis, told the New York Times, “the question is not, 'Is [genetic engineering] good or bad, but instead, what is the most appropriate technology that can be used for a particular situation, and will that approach advance sustainable agriculture." Note: Dr. Ronald is married to an organic farmer, and as she said in her TED talk, they both believe in sustainable agriculture.

2. GMOs are not tested. Getting a genetically modified seed from the lab into the hands of a farmer takes more than just maniacally cackling “it’s alive” while jabbing a syringe into a pumpkin with legs (but if Tim Burton is ever running low on story ideas, this will be a deliriously twisted update on the Cinderella story). There are serious testing standards in place from the EPA, FDA, and USDA. GMOs are basically tested down to the last strand of DNA. That’s not something that new crops developed from natural breeding methods are put through before you bake them into a pie.

It can take upward of a decade of testing before a new GMO hits market. In that time, I would like pumpkin to turn into a Tesla, but science moves slowly, and we’re getting a single trait in a plant one carefully tested gene at a time.

3. The pesticides like Roundup that are used with GMOs are way worse than older pesticides. How do you define one substance being “worse” than another? Is it how much of a substance you have to ingest to have an overdose? Is it how much an “evil” corporation is charging for it? How much environmental damage the substance does? I have good, and probably surprising, news: By all those metrics, glyphosate, the active ingredient in the pesticide Roundup, is relatively nontoxic. How toxic, you ask?

There are a few things people think automatically when they get a vision in their head about farming. One is that we were doing just fine with farming before GMOs and pesticides showed up and ruined everything. Another is that we’re continually using more dangerous pesticides. But when you look a little closer, farming is getting smarter and better.

The bane of farmers livelihoods has been managing crops relationships with the elements — fungus, worms, bacteria, nematodes, viruses … the list is goes on, and they go on to cause famine. Farmer have to keep their acres healthy before harvest, carefully managing their use of pesticides so they don’t hurt the plant, the environment, or the human who eats it.

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Do you have a picture in your brain of what farming was like in the good old days? Were there deer and bunnies wandering around a cabbage patch? You’re picturing a Disney movie, not agriculture. Once upon a time, sulfuric acid and arsenicals were used as pesticides, with the delightful issues of damaging farm equipment and potential human and animal toxicity. New synthetic pesticides were much lower in toxicity, but there’s always room for improvement. Alachlor, cyanazine, fluazifop, and several other pesticides that are markedly more toxic than glyphosate have dropped off in usage dramatically since the introduction of glyphosate.

4. Farmers face lawsuit from suppliers if all their seeds aren’t GMOs. You’ve seen this on a Netflix documentary, right? A farmer who comes out in silhouette says he was sued by Monsanto for having a few soybean seeds blow into his field. He’s just a simple farmer and Monsanto sent six SUVs to roll up to his field where Superman’s ship crash landed.

Did you catch that maybe part of that paragraph was a myth? I’m guessing you think it was the part about Superman, but the farmer’s story about this wretched villainous hive that sent six SUVs to his farm is only missing its own strip.

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Yes, Monsanto and other companies patent their GMO seed varieties, but this is standard in the industry and it’s not just a thing that happens to GMO crops. The Honeycrisp apple was patented (it expired a few years ago). The SweeTango apple’s patent is so tightly controlled by the developer, the University of Minnesota, that farmers have to pay royalties on sales to the university. In most cases, these patents allows a company to recoup the money they put into development for a period of time before it enters the public domain. Monsanto’s GMO soy came off patent last year.

But as for those lawsuit rumors? Farmers have a wide variety of suppliers to choose from, and they can go back and forth between GMO and non-GMO suppliers. Does it seem a little strange that the only confirmation that this happened for these documentaries is a shadowy figure off camera and not, say, actual court records? NPR looked at those court records, but they’re not what you’d expect. In a lawsuit filed against Monsanto, a group of organic farmers claimed that if GMOs infiltrated their fields, Monsanto would sue them for patent infringement. Not a single case could be produced in which this had ever happened, and their lawsuit was thrown out. (To be clear, NPR’s reporting didn’t exactly nominate Monsanto for sainthood, citing that they seemingly overreached if it appeared that farmers violated their patent agreements, but this never happened for seeds blowing into a farmer’s field.)

5. GMOs are just a way for big corporations to make money. We can do everything in farming if we just make soil healthier, right? Fuck corporations, man! All we need to do is harness the power of really sad-looking kittens and more goddamn kale than you can possibly shove up a Prius’s tail pipe, and we can fix anything!

Yes, not surprisingly, companies do make money from their GMO seeds. But “How much money are they raking in?” disregards the more important question: "Why did we use genetic modification?" It’s one of many tools that farmers have available to get a desired trait in their crops. In some cases, it's what we turn to as a last resort to save a crop that’s being attacked by the elements.

Also, this argument disregards all the times there wasn't a dime in it for the companies. The Hawaiian papaya, for instance, was under attack by the ringspot virus in the 1980s. The papayas themselves were edible, but the trees would slowly die. Working with Monsanto, geneticist Dr. Dennis Gonsalves developed a genetically modified plant to give the papaya a sort of a genetic vaccination to the virus, and the papaya market was saved. The patent for the GMO papaya was licensed for free to the Hawaiian papaya farmers, and the seeds are sold to them at cost.

If someone chooses not to eat GMOs, that’s one thing. But don’t let them tell you that Monsanto is evil while anti-GMO Whole Foods is pure and righteous when they make about the same amount of money when one provides the technology that saves crops from the brink of extinction and the other sells such necessities as asparagus water, camel milk, and kale ice cream.

6.GMOs are killing the bees. Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is defined by the EPA as a majority of a hive’s worker bees leaving the queen bee. Is there one singular cause? Highly unlikely. Are GMOs the cause? Not a chance. Everyone from the president of Monsanto to the people who operate the tractors at family-owned farms are invested in the fact that bees are necessary for the survival of agriculture. Much like lube and pornography, these two have a symbiotic relationship.

The likeliest culprits for CCD? A deadly virus, the varroa mites, a species that viciously attacks the bees, and the effects of climate change. If pesticides are involved, any degree and exact role hasn’t been determined yet.

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7. GMOs can cause health problems. You’ve seen the pictures of the rats with the tumors? There are stories everywhere that health problems have gone away when people have given up GMOs.

As for people saying throughout the internet that taking GMOs out of their diet helped get rid of acne, asthma, or premature ejaculation, anecdotal evidence from bloggers with a laundry list of affiliate links to organic brands isn’t scientific evidence. Get your medical advice from doctors. Unless you have an allergy to a few GM foods (the two biggest culprits here would be soybeans and corn, and you’d have to avoid their non-GM counterparts as well), you can easily enjoy a diet with GMOs and not worry about them causing health problems.

8. G-M-Oh my God, Becky, I heard GMOs make you fat! You just know that GMOs are responsible for your jeans getting tight (they personally shrunk them in the dryer). You read somewhere that GMO sugar beets are used to make high fructose corn syrup and that means it’s bad and it’s making you eat more.

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Well, I also read Twilight, it doesn’t make it true. Or good literature.

GMOs do not cause weight gain. It’s the number of calories that you’re taking in, and it doesn’t matter if it’s from a product that contains GMOs, unicorn teardrops, a grass-fed steak, or if you somehow manage to shove 12,000 calories of lettuce into your face in a day. An excess of calories causes weight gain, and you can get an excess of calories from almost any source. So why do GMOs get a bad rep when people have lost weight on everything from McDonald's to Twinkies?

Simple: correlation and causation. Products derived from GMOs — like high fructose corn syrup — are in some products that aren’t necessarily beacons of health. But is the genetic modification of the plants to blame? Nope. HFCS is just two types of simple sugar molecules, and it’s a sweetener commonly derived from GMO corn. Calorie per calorie? It stacks up pretty much the same as sugar derived from any source, and you shouldn’t go overboard on any of it.

Paramount Pictures

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My late-night ice cream plus french fries plus chocolate (you don’t know my life) craving while watching 18 episodes of Rick and Morty in a row means the scale was up a pound this morning? Nah, it was the HFCS from GMO corn in the ice cream, the GMO soybean oil in the fries, and the GMO corn that they fed the cows to make the milk in the ice cream and chocolate. Totally.

Or it was just that someone ate too many calories. Yes, someone. Ahem.

9. GMOs increase pesticide usage. Oh, I’ve heard this one a lot. “I’m hearing GMOs were just a plot to sell more Roundup! They tell me that they only made Roundup Ready crops as a plot to sell their evil demon Roundup and seeds! They’re spraying chemicals from the skies! Loud noises!”

Yes, it is absolutely true that Monsanto developed the pesticide glyphosate and the GMO Roundup Ready seeds. They’ve sold their blockbuster pesticide in tandem with their GMO seeds since they first were approved for market 20 years ago. It’s fair to say that Roundup sales have increased since GMOs have hit market, and it makes it an easy scare tactic to use. But that’s like saying there’s a conspiracy because we have more smartphones on the market since the iPhone went on sale or that more leggings have been sold since we welcomed our spandex overlords. It leaves out from the data what was being used before and how much total pesticide is being used now.

What about those giant sprayers you’ve seen dousing fields with glyphosate? And they always use the word “dousing,” don’t they? Is this about farming or the latest Carl’s Jr. burger commercial? On that note, can they please get Jason Statham for the next commercial? That scary liquid being sprayed? It’s mostly water. If it were 100 percent concentrated, it would be about the volume of a soda can of Roundup on an entire acre of crops.

10. Everything on the market is genetically modified. This is a fun one.

There are only eight GMOs — corn, soybeans, papaya, beets, squash, cotton, canola, and alfalfa — currently available for retail sale, and three more currently approved but not yet available to consumers. The Arctic Apple that resists turning brown when exposed to air and the Innate Potato that resists bruising and produces a lower amount of acrylamide (a carcinogen) from certain cooking techniques will both be hitting market in 2017. And Aquabounty Salmon with a faster growth rate than its non-GM counterpart will join them soon, though there's no pending release date.

Oh, but you heard from that friend who forwarded a scary meme on Facebook with an ingredient list showing soy, corn, and a long word you can’t pronounce that everything has GMOs in it?

Yeah, a lot of things you buy in a package have a small percentage of ingredients derived from a GMO product. However, do you know how many things other on the shelves were modified with selective breeding techniques from what they looked like when Paleolithic man was chasing down his food with a rock and a prayer that his loincloth wouldn’t selectively tear?

Goddamned everything. Even your precious fucking kale.

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NBC

I’m not kidding. Kale is what happens when you selectively breed wild mustard. In fact, so are broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and cabbage. They’re all selectively bred types of the same species, and they can even breed with each other. It’s why you have the naturally bred broccoflower to coat in panko, smother in cheese, put in a mason jar, and call the new kale.

Perhaps “good” and “evil” foods are all a matter of perception. Studies keep showing that GMOs and conventionally bred products are basically the same for you, and that's what it takes to get to the market in the first place. Hybridization, selective breeding, and genetic modification are all tools that have helped farming and given us the richest and most secure time in agricultural history. It’s time that we stop hating them, start supporting farmers, and get a little smarter about the science of GMOs and agriculture.

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